College students tend to learn better later in the day, in classes after 10 a.m.
College students are considered to be lazy. Despite this fact, a new study shows that college students fall asleep during class because they are forced to wake up too early. This research focused on finding why college students tend to fall asleep or to be distracted during morning classes. Mariah Evans started this research because she observed that her students were not paying attention during morning classes.
With the help of two other researchers, Evens decided to find out the reason for which college students don’t learn enough during early classes. The findings of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. In order to conduct this research, the scientists took 2 different approaches.
Classes should start after 10 a.m.
The researchers analyzed the relationship between the cognitive function and sleep. In the second approach, they surveyed almost 200 second- and first-year students. Both of these approaches had the same result. Researchers observed that the classes start too early for the brains of the students.
The findings of the study showed that teenagers have a different body clock than adults. While adults are able to learn early in the morning, the brain of a college student needs more sleep. Researchers mentioned that the ideal hours for classes is 10 a.m. Despite this fact, most of the college classes start at 8 a.m. This is making students feel tired and they can’t pay attention to the other classes.
When the students were allowed to choose the starting time of their six-hour day, more than 80% of them performed better. High school and middle school students have the same problem. Various studies have shown that 8 a.m. classes make young adults and children feel tired. For the sake of the students’ health and education, classes should start later in the day, when young adults can focus more.
Previous studies showed that all teenagers tend to learn better when they attend classes after 10 a.m. Researchers mentioned that the best way to make students learn more is to change the timings of the classes. Maybe, these studies will be taken into consideration in order to make students feel better and learn more.
What is your opinion about this study?
Image source: Flickr
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